the basilica that bears a fisherman’s name
the stones arranged by hands that believed the sky listened
the feel of your weathered hand in mine

the island monks once called closer to god than water
the hush that lives in museums where the paintings keep breathing
the pew wood polished by generations of restless fingers
the candle smoke that turns wanting into a language

the city layered with prayer like sediment
the first snowfall that makes the whole world soundproof
the hour before dawn when the kitchen light feels like a confession
the space between thunder and the impact of it

the path pilgrims walk until their feet blister into belief
the shoreline at low tide when the earth shows its bones
the moment you can’t tell if you’re ending or beginning
the way moonlight makes even ugly things look forgiven

the mountain where silence is treated like scripture
the library stacks where every spine is a small devotion
the bookstore aisle that feels like being chosen
the margin notes of a stranger who survived something you haven’t named yet

the well people have been lowering questions into for centuries
the drive home with the radio off because silence finally fits
the passenger seat filled with everything you won’t say out loud
the exact curve of the road where grief always catches up

the monastery ruins that learned how to be empty without being gone
the hospital hallway at night where the lights never fully dim
the paper gown that makes you feel like a body before a person
the soft beep of a monitor insisting you’re still here

the altar carved by thousands of knees
the altar call you answered because you thought safety lived there
the sanctuary that taught you to confuse obedience with love
the moment you realized forgiveness was being used like a gag

the desert where prophets went to be undone
the chair you sat in when you finally told the truth
the room that didn’t collapse when you said what happened
the silence afterward that felt like air returning to your lungs

the threshold of your own front door when you come home alone
the bed you made into a small country called mine
the quiet pride of choosing yourself without anyone clapping

the road people walk hoping to be changed
the text thread you reread like a rosary of almosts
the memory of laughter that still tastes like grief
the way missing someone can feel holy and cruel at the same time

the sound of your name in a voice that means it gently
the moment you’re touched and don’t brace for it
the second your body believes it is safe

the ground that remembers everyone who ever loved it
the place inside you where you keep the ones you’ve lost
the ordinary afternoon when you suddenly feel them near
the way love outlives the language you used to pray in

the thinness of the hour when one year loosens its grip
and the next hasn’t learned your name yet

the countdown you half-listen to
because time has already been slipping through you all night

the quiet inventory of what survived
and what didn’t
and what surprised you by still being here

the grief that crossed the calendar with you
unchanged by fireworks
unimpressed by resolutions

the hope that didn’t arrive as certainty
but showed up anyway
small and unassuming
like breath

the realization that crossing into a new year
is not about becoming someone else

but about carrying what is sacred
forward

we want to linger in thin places
to press our palms against them
to ask them to stay open

to make them rooms instead of moments
to turn them into addresses
to build lives inside the ache

but thin places are not meant to be inhabited
they are meant to be crossed

they exist only because they are brief
because they open and close
because they refuse to be held

if you stay too long
the air thickens
the miracle dulls
the veil remembers itself

and maybe that is the kindness

that we are given just enough
to recognize what is possible
before it slips away

that the gift is not the staying
but the glimpse

not the dwelling
but the knowing

and then the ordinary world returns
heavier
louder
unchanged

except for you

who learned, for a moment,
that it could thin

and did

and will again